Coronavirus cases are plummeting. Mask mandates are coming to an end. And for the first time in months, the pandemic threat that hung over Joe Biden’s presidency appears to be receding.
But as he readies his first State of the Union address, Biden isn’t planning a victory declaration — at least not yet.
The president on Tuesday is expected to stop well short of the mission accomplished moment on Covid that many members of his own party would like to see, stressing instead the need to remain vigilant against the virus, even as the nation enters what many people hope will be a pandemic endgame.
Biden’s remarks will emphasize that the nation has made significant progress toward reining in the pandemic, five people familiar with the planning of the speech said. Yet even as he touts how far the U.S. has come, Biden is likely to warn that it may still be a bumpy path back to normalcy.
“If you’re waiting to rip off your masks, this is not it,” said one of the people familiar with the planning.
The attempt to balance growing confidence and lingering caution on Covid illustrates the sense inside the White House that they must chart a delicate path out of the crisis — and the reality that after a year of politically painful fits and starts, Biden can ill afford another setback.
In internal administration meetings to discuss the speech, senior health officials repeatedly warned White House aides against ever declaring the pandemic to be “over,” citing the possibility of new variants and the likelihood of future outbreaks among the unvaccinated, two of the people familiar with the planning said.
Those health officials have also argued that the administration needs to show Americans that it has a clear and detailed plan for restoring normalcy as well as a plan for when the next biomedical threat emerges — a process that is still under development.
Biden, for his part, is determined to avoid a repeat of his decision last July to celebrate “independence from the virus,” only to watch the U.S. get hit with the lethal Delta surge weeks later, according to two of the people familiar with the planning. The ensuing six months saw a major dip for the president in the polls. It also forced the administration to dramatically recalibrate its aspirations for the pandemic response, turning what officials once believed would be a key first-year accomplishment into a lengthy battle with no clear end date.
“The challenge we have right now is, in a sense, it’s somewhat déjà vu all over again,” said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and former Biden transition Covid-19 adviser, adding that he was among those who “argued strongly last summer” against the Independence Day celebration. “We’ve got to be humble right now and say we can’t tell you with certainty what this [next stage] is.”
But as the White House looks to maintain a relatively sober approach to the pandemic fight, there is also recognition that the political landscape is shifting around them. It’s not just that the public’s appetite for health measures is waning. Biden also now faces a new, urgent crisis in responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and managing the geopolitical and economic fallout — a challenge that has sparked fresh anxiety at home and required an immediate shift in the State of the Union’s tone and substance.
Or as one senior administration official put it: “How much of an emphasis is he going to [have on] Covid when the country’s tired of Covid, but they’re scared shitless about Russia?”
The White House declined to comment.
Biden is still likely to offer his sunniest view of the pandemic since before the Delta and Omicron variants swamped the country — pointing to declining case rates and hospitalizations and the growing arsenal of vaccines and treatments as evidence that Covid no longer needs to be a crisis for much of the country. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control revamped its metrics assessing Covid risk, meaning most Americans now live in areas where the agency believes masking can be optional.
But the reluctance to declare a beginning of a post-pandemic era could disappoint Democrats, who have agitated for a definitive turn toward normalcy to salvage the party’s midterm prospects and align it with swing voters fatigued by the debates over mask and vaccine mandates.
Some vulnerable Democrats in Congress began nudging Biden in early February to declare a new phase of the pandemic, arguing much of the country is already moving on anyway. Others worry that after taking months of blame for the nation’s Covid struggles, Biden risks squandering perhaps his best chance to claim credit for his administration’s accomplishments.
"These things are all driven by consensus and clearly the consensus among the American public is that we've moved on," said Joe DiSano, a Michigan-based Democratic consultant. "The White House has to note immense progress. They should end the mask wars and embrace the gift of vaccines."
Despite his party’s growing impatience, Biden and his top health advisers have stressed the need to be deliberate about the administration’s next steps, for fear a mistake will further damage its credibility with the public. Administration officials spent the last several weeks consulting with an array of outside public health experts, governors and business executives on how to manage a shift toward normalcy while also preparing for a return to crisis response measures if a dangerous new variant emerges.
That work is being adapted into a comprehensive playbook that the White House could unveil as soon as this week, three of the people familiar with the planning said. It will make a forceful public health case for easing restrictions as caseloads drop and encourage a return to in-person work and other activities. But it will also detail how the government plans to react to future outbreaks and warn that precautions could still be dialed back up down the road.
“It has to be framed very clearly that changes that we’re making are due to the fact that the pandemic is on the decline,” said Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former acting CDC director, who is among the experts that the administration has consulted. “If there’s a change and new strains and new conditions, we will need to put these measures back in place.”
Some officials have floated having Biden deliver a separate speech when the administration releases its Covid playbook to more specifically lay out his vision for the next phase of the pandemic, the two people familiar with the planning said. But, here too, the White House is managing expectations, cautioning that the specifics of the rollout are still in flux and the final product is unlikely to be the kind of chest-thumping victory lap some Democrats are eager to see.
That’s in part because the administration has yet to hit some key milestones needed to protect all Americans. A Covid vaccine for children under five is now unlikely to be available until April at the earliest, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, after regulators opted to wait for more data on the effectiveness of Pfizer’s shot.
And amid vocal concerns from the disability community over officials’ seeming readiness to adopt a live-with-the-virus strategy, White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients has stressed in meetings that the administration needs a plan aimed at protecting and aiding immunocompromised people who remain far more vulnerable to the virus.
For Biden, it all amounts to an acknowledgment that the virus he once promised to “shut down” isn’t going away completely, no matter the political implications.
“The virus is going to do what it’s going to do,” Osterholm said. “And we’re just up against that.”
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By: Adam Cancryn and Sarah Owermohle
Title: Biden wants to declare a new chapter in the Covid fight. He’s trigger shy.
Sourced From: www.politico.com/news/2022/02/28/biden-covid-fight-next-chapter-00012079
Published Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2022 04:30:00 EST
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